Blizzard's untitled survival game is still chugging along through development behind the scenes, and apparently the team working on it has doubled over the last year.
In a blog post looking back at the last year, Blizzard head Mike Ybarra noted that "The team has doubled in size this year and we’re looking to grow it even more in the new year!"
He also reiterated that it is in fact a new IP (the company's first since Overwatch in 2016). And he noted that its dev team was being headed up by former Far Cry director Dan Hay, who left Ubisoft in late 2021 after over ten years with the company.
We first learned about Blizzard's untitled survival game earlier this year via an official blog post announcing job openings. From that post, we know it's planned for PC and "console," and know it will involve: “A place full of heroes we have yet to meet, stories yet to be told, and adventures yet to be lived. A vast realm of possibility, waiting to be explored.” We also got a look at two pieces of artwork listed alongside the opening that show crossovers of modern and fantasy settings, and a hunter dressed in a cap and armor. But it remains unclear what the specific relation between these images and the game itself will be.
At that time, Ybarra also said he had played "many hours" already with the team, which indicate that it was in some sort of playable state at the time, and has presumably progressed further since.
Elsewhere in today's blog post, Ybarra addressed the company's ongoing efforts to improve its company culture after a series of exposes last year revealing ongoing discrimination, harassment, and toxicity within the company. He noted that the percentage of women and non-binary individuals at Blizzard has grown in the last year from 22% to 25%, and the percentange of employees from underrepresented ethnic groups has grown from 34% to 36% in that same period.
Also somewhat notably, alongside the blog post Blizzard also published a year-long content roadmap for its latest World of Warcraft expansion: Dragonflight. While many other live service games publish similar roadmaps all the time, this is the first time Blizzard has given a year-long plan for patches before as an official announcement. The post expects six total content patches across 2023: two major patches with new zones and raids, and four others with smaller updates like world events, dungeons, narrative chapters, and system updates.
Rebekah Valentine is a news reporter for IGN. You can find her on Twitter @duckvalentine.
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